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In our music department there is a 20 or so year old Yamaha C7 which is not in great shape. There has been a suggestion to re-string the bass with new brass wound strings rather than the usual copper wound ones. The given reason is that the brass wound strings will give a richer, darker sound to the bass. Does anyone know anything about the tonal response of brass wound strings on pianos?It seems to me that almost every major piano maker uses copper wound strings and no doubt with good reason.

Robert, I believe that the winding only adds mass to the wire and has nothing to do with tone.Tone is more a product of the core wire.One reason that copper is used is that the sweadgings hold very well and the winding stays on the core wire. Other windings like steel are not so efficient in this way and the windings tend to come loose from the core wire and buzz.Changing the type of winding will change the outer diameter of the wire and could cause other problems with spacing and dampers etc.Also, rescaling using a different wrap will take some calculation - do you know a string maker willing to do this for you?

Thank you, Gene for your reply. It is not my piano, but it would seem that there is little to be gained from changing the winding and possibly it could cause problems with scaling, dampers and spacing. Thank you again for this information.